I received a lovely note the other day thanking me for an article Cheryl Lowe—not I—had written. With two people in one publishing house named Cheryl, things can become confusing. Let there be no mistake: I was but a quiet mother of toddler twins in Missouri when Cheryl Lowe founded Memoria Press in 1998. Two […]
One morning a welcoming cohort gathered with me around a seminar table for the course “Difference and Human Dignity in the Great Tradition” at Templeton Honors College at Eastern University in Philadelphia. A cohort, I had learned prior to my arrival, is “a group of people who are banded together.” The intelligent faces around me […]
What is it to be human? And how does our response to this question shed light on how we orient our hearts toward persons with disabilities? These two questions have guided much of my reading and thinking over the past few years as I have designed a course called “Difference and Human Dignity in the […]
A friend and I brought our children to a playground one summer many years ago. As heat, humidity, and noise intensified, one of my twins became unruly and unkempt and had a wild look in the eyes. My friend’s child quickly backed away with fearful disgust and exclaimed, “A monster!” My friend quickly chided, “That’s […]
If you appreciate the covers and beauty of design throughout our magazine, you must meet the designer who lends elegance and artistry to every issue. A quiet young woman, she approached me with tears in her eyes after our Sodalitas conference sessions on struggling learners one year. Assigned to photograph our sessions, she had also […]
When my grandma left me more than half a century of diaries, she gave me much more than large boxes of small books. She gave me a keyhole through which to peer into the span of her life. Often at night I draw open another volume and close my eyes to breathe in the faint […]
“I would love to get my child on Memoria Press, but I can’t figure out where.” That was my very first forum post three years ago. It was 3:00 a.m. in mid-August. By 10:00 a.m. Cheryl Swope had responded with a customized curriculum plan for my child. She recommended we switch to the Simply Classical […]
Recently I attended some out-of-town meetings on parochial education. As I left my hotel room to face the long day ahead of me, prepared but a little hesitant to begin the extended and mind-intensive work, I gathered my name tag and folder. I scanned the hotel room one last time to see if I had […]
Classical writings possess a distinctly concise wisdom. Rather than distant relics or dusty artifacts, these treasures instruct our children in our own time. When we want to introduce classical literature, Aesop is a good place to start. Aesop’s fables have long been considered “the ideal pedagogical vehicle, second only to the Bible when it comes […]
I usually enjoy planning for an upcoming school year, but last summer was different. Very different. For the first time the schedules of six school-aged children and a toddler stared back at me. All my children have various combinations of challenges: anxiety, attention, sensory, memory, emotional. With a family business and a homeschool ministry on […]